Before you head out for your weekend, here are three things that I have read and/or been thinking about this week. Hope they are as helpful to you as they have been for me!

#1

To embrace our vocations in midlife means that we accept two distinct but inseparable realities. First, we accept with grace our limitations and move as quickly as we can beyond illusion about who we are. Second, it means, positively, that we accept responsibility for our gifts and abilities, and acknowledge with grace what we can do.

Courage and Calling by Gordon T. Smith

As life progresses, a funny things happens. We gain confidence in what we can do and what we can’t do! I no longer think that I can dunk a basketball…nor could I ever if I am honest! But I do know that I have some other gifts. Smith says above that the embracing our ‘calling’ in midlife and beyond (my words) is about knowing ourselves: what are we good at and what might we might well need to move on from. And decades of experience(s) have helped us to gain that insight.

Calling (or vocation as Smith says) is never over in life. There is no such thing as being retired from being a Christian. In fact, later in life often affords freedom of time, talent, and resources that were unavailable earlier not to mention the hard-earned discovery of who we are and what we are good at. The second half of life may very well be the most productive and impactful time for us!

#2

The writer and Christian theologian C.S. Lewis  wrote, “Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality.”

Another way of putting it is that we don’t really know if we possess a virtue until it is tested. We might think of ourselves as honest, but we don’t really know if we are until honesty carries a cost. Or we might think of ourselves as physically brave, but we don’t know if we are until we face a mortal threat. We might be sure that we’re faithful, right until the moment when temptation is at its peak.  

Tim Miller in THE ATLANTIC

Miller asserts that we don’t truly know our character until we are tested. Scripture says in James 1:3 that the testing of our faith produces endurance and endurance has its full effect of making us mature and complete. What are the tests that we are experiencing today? What has it revealed about our character?

Do we fashion ourselves as patient? What truth is revealed when we get stuck behind a slow driver or have to wait in a doctor’s office? A peaceful existence or something else? I’ll stop meddling for now, but it is a worthwhile truth to consider our tests and what they are revealing about our character.

#3

The book of the law shall not depart from your mouth; you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to act in accordance with all this is written. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.

Joshua 1:8 NRSV

This is my memory verse for the week. Memorizing Scripture has been an off and on pursuit of mine which has again been turned to on. Character is formed around something. And for the followers of Christ, that something is the Word of God implanted in our soul. There can be no substitute for memorization to do just that. How about it? Let’s get our flashcards prepared and begin the word of implanting.